Q: Why have I not received my housing stipend for the Spring semester?

A: There could be several reasons why you have not received your Post 9/11 GI Bill housing allowance yet, but because we are not affiliated with the VA, these are only guesses:

• Your school did not send in their required paperwork to the VA for this semester.
• You exhausted your months of GI Bill benefits at the end of the last semester.
• You are taking all online classes this semester.
• The VA has not processed your benefits claim yet.

As far as the first one, talk to your school VA Certifying Official and ask when he/she sent in your Certificate of Enrollment. It might have gotten overlooked or missed and not sent in.

Do you know how many months of benefits you had left at the end of the last semester? If you are sure you had entitlement left, then this is most likely not the reason.

If you changed from taking all classroom courses, or a mix of classroom/online and went just with online this semester, then that is the reason as online-only students are not authorized the housing allowance. This will change in the fall with the passage of the GI Bill 2.0. Online-only students can get up to $673.50 in a housing allowance.

Most likely the reason is the VA has not processed your claim for benefits yet, however to be sure, contact the VA and ask them, or see your school Certifying Official and ask that person to check for you. They are there to help solve your GI Bill issues.